Did Foursquare Jump the Shark or Is It Just Imminent? Dennis Crowley Gives CNN ‘Shit’

June 5, 2010

Foursquare, the shit-hot social networking site and software for mobile devices based on geo-location, makes going out a game. You “check in” to establishments, alerting your “friends” as to your whereabouts, earning badges in the process. If done with enough frequency, you can even be crowned the “mayor,” like Mikey B, but poorer. Together, we read about Foursquare and the burgeoning New York City tech scene when all of the nerdy boys graced the cover of New York magazine. That was an exciting time, back in April. Now chief nerdy boy and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley is gracing the front page of cnn.com. That’s the big time. But does it mean your mother will be joining at any minute? Crowley doesn’t give a shit!

Whether you believe the oversaturation mark is approaching rapidly or distant in our review mirrors already (Crowley is also gracing the cover of Wired in the U.K.), the man has already accomplished so much. Namely, he got censored by CNN in his very first quote:

Dennis Crowley was jogging across a New York bridge when he spotted something exciting: a cartoon mushroom, spray-painted on the sidewalk.

It looked like something out of Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.,” which Crowley grew up playing. He stomped on the mushroom as he ran by and had a sort of nerdy realization.

“I was like, s—!” he recalled. ” ‘I should get a power-up for that!’ “

The word he used was probably “shit.” Shit, shit, shit.

CNN proceeded to follow around our foulmouthed tech hero for 24 hours in the “gritty and artsy” East Village, but not before referring to him as “a 33-year-old … with Justin Bieber-like hair.”

As we’ve heard before, Crowley’s favorite bar is the Scratcher on 5th Street, and the entire profile is largely made up of information readily available in any of the previous Crowley or Foursquare-related press. But that’s not the point; the point is that standard CNN readers don’t all read New York and they certainly don’t read blogs dissecting a New York story. This is next-level press, reaching a gigantic audience. So just don’t be surprised when we soon have a mayor of Talbots.